


Therapy

by orphan_account



Category: Phineas and Ferb
Genre: Heinz finally gets therapy, Heinz is working through some stuff, I don't plan on having Perry or Roger actually appear but they are mentioned often enough, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-24
Updated: 2019-04-23
Packaged: 2020-01-25 18:31:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18580183
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Of all the things to trigger Heinz to actually go to therapy, he didn’t expect his mother’s death to be it.





	Therapy

**Author's Note:**

> I got a few ideas for upcoming chapters, mainly that will be focusing on his actual feelings towards his parents more intimately, his relationship with Roger as well as Perry, and his more physical traumas. 
> 
> I may switch up how I format it, but we'll see how it goes!

Of all the things to trigger Heinz to actually go to therapy, he didn’t expect his mother’s death to be it. 

In fact, it never dawned on him that his mother was capable of it. She failed to ever be more than a symbol to him if he was honest. A symbol of what he so desperately wanted out of a family, of life, and a symbol of loss. It was her who really shattered any hope for a loving familial figure within the house. After all, if his mother couldn’t love him, who could? 

Who would?

His therapist told him his conflicting emotions were natural, considering their history. He loved what his mother could have been and loathed what she was. Heinz didn’t know what to say to that.

He had the decency to hold off any active resentment towards Roger at the funeral at least, despite the urges, even though he was the one everyone asked if he was alright. No one even mentioned Heinz too had lost what was meant to be a mother. It was an echo of their father’s funeral, with the simple and glaring absence of his graying mother. Roger handled it with grace, though there certainly was a sense of loss in his voice. A sincere sort that Heinz felt entirely uncomfortable with. The leaking sense of humanity had him squirming, trying to not linger on it. Roger always was closer to her, after all. He was the one that actually got to be a son. Not a garden gnome or an ocelot.

It was uncomfortable to find himself becoming jealous of that as well. Envious of his brother’s grief. The more he lost meant he had more, to begin with. 

For all his rage regarding Roger’s penchant for perfection, there was a twinge of sympathy that lay rooted in his chest. Roger was his little brother, he never meaningfully targeted Heinz out. Besides a few poorly placed words every once and a while, that was. He was as hungry for his parents love as any boy would be. It was his parent’s choice to so unevenly offer their affections. As his therapist pointed out. 

But his successfulness remained annoying. So Heinz’s attempts towards making his life unfortunate for once was completely founded. It was therapeutic, really. His therapist wasn’t impressed.

Whatever. Heinz didn’t get anything from his mother’s death, whereas Roger got the inheritance and the sympathy of the rest of the family. He got a therapist with her pricey bills to tell him that his deep-rooted trauma was something he deserved to process and heal from, blah, blah, blah.

His mother never did care for the thought of therapy. It wasn’t even a thing back in his hometown. But once when a relative made some snide remark aimed at Heinz’s psyche and apparent necessity of some professional help, a fairly infuriating insult for the insinuations, his mother huffed, disapproving of even the hypothetical prospect that her “son” could be so weak as to need a stranger to tell him how broken he was. 

 

He hoped she was rolling in her grave now. 

It didn’t matter how valid his trauma may be or how it didn’t make him weak or lesser, or whatever his therapist reiterated to him. She was a woman of image. 

How difficult it had been for him to understand what love was with that perspective, that there was an image to uphold, a standard to reach to earn parental love, untangle it from the crumpled and broken mess that was his heart. His understanding, his heart became so twisted in the midst of neglected hugs and frozen nights and huddling against Momma Ocelot. It wasn’t that he didn’t try, again and again, in so many ways to just connect with someone. To have a solid connection with another person. The first time he really got it right was with Vanessa. The unconditional, unflinching love he had for her filled him beyond what he had ever known. What he should have had he could now give. 

Perry the Platypus, his nemesis of all people, was the only other who could compare. He was the one who taught him what goodness was when for so long his parents had failed. Even if Heinz wasn’t about to give up his evil, for the time being, he did hold begrudging respect and appreciation towards what Perry accomplished and the passion in which he stood for it. He could see how it gave him purpose, and Heinz was proud to contribute in some way towards that.

Anyways. Right. His mother didn’t go gently into that sweet night, she went hacking and clawing. A heart attack, apparently. It felt like a poetic irony, in a twisted way. For the woman who failed his heart over and over again to die like that. Her own heart failing herself. His therapist mentioned the morbidity of the observation he made, but she didn’t look particularly put off by it. He decided it was fine.

There was no final moment of cruelty or final reconciliation. He heard about it from the voicemail Roger left when he refused to pick up his calls. But even without seeing his mother after so long, he was fairly certain he had never crossed her mind. He shared little to nothing of her life, right up to the end.

His therapist took meticulous notes, in a nice and unreadable cursive that he could peek at from the couch he sat on. He was used to speaking, monologues were his forte after all, but it was a new sensation here. He felt restless, forced to fiddle with his hands while he relayed his tragic circumstance to the nicely kept woman with a doctorate hanging on the wall. Likely given from a reputable institution of one kind or another. She was kind enough, accepting of what he said, occasionally encouraging with words of his own. So he pushed on with it, details plenty practiced from his time sharing with Perry the Platypus. 

There was an understanding there between them, despite the nemesis-ship. Perry understood what it felt like to be drowning in all of what you had been and what had been done. Heinz didn’t know quite as many details about Perry’s life outside of their- relationship?- their thing. But he did know that being an agent, being the position Perry was in didn’t come without sacrifice. He knew which motions would make the agent tense, which one left a distant look in his gaze. He knew how to accommodate and adapt. Just as much as Perry never got them hot dogs when they went out to eat or avoided the gardening section in stores that had gnomes lined up as innocent decorations. 

Anyone small act of compassion from Perry, who was meant to be his enemy, outweighed any compassion his mother showed him throughout his entire life. He was her son, all he had was her. And it was now, now that she was gone and had no more life to give, that he had to face it. That he will never have a mother that really, truly loves him. He will never know that warmth, considering she was just as cold to him in life as in death. 

It was Perry, who in the midst of his drowning in panic, reminded him how to swim. It wasn’t that they could save each other. But they could offer a hand to each other. They could offer a warm blanket and some cheesy romcoms. 

That was more than enough for Heinz. More than he ever had before.

Ah, there was the alarm signaling the end of their first session. His therapist smiled at him, reminding him of their already scheduled next appointment. Next week it was.


End file.
